National Geographic Scientist Uncovers Treasure Trove of Human Fossils That Could...

National Geographic Scientist Uncovers Treasure Trove of Human Fossils That
Could Challenge Rules of Human Evolution

Tiny Humans Living as Recently as 1,500 Years Ago Could Rewrite the Timeline
for Human Evolution

"Mystery Skulls of Palau" Premieres Monday, March 17, at 10 PM ET/PT

WASHINGTON, March 11 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- On the final day of his
vacation in Palau, National Geographic research grantee and world-renowned
paleoanthropologist Lee Berger accompanies a local guide to a hidden cave
where he discovers a cache of fossilized human remains. Berger returns to the
cave six weeks later with a team of elite scientists and finds not just one
human skeleton, but several, unlike any he has ever seen. Measurements show
that these people were some of the smallest humans to walk the earth, but they
had enormous teeth. Has Berger discovered a lost human species or a tribe of
mutants?

The story of human evolution is filled with unexpected twists and turns. In
2004, a groundbreaking discovery made headlines around the world when
scientists revealed evidence of a lost human species on the remote Indonesian
island of Flores. Researchers believe Homo floresiensis, nicknamed "The
Hobbit," shared the earth with modern humans for at least 80,000 years. Is it
possible that a wandering tribe of hobbit-like humans made their way 1,800
miles from Flores to Palau?

On Monday, March 17, at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT -- on the heels of the March 11
scientific publication regarding these small-bodied humans -- join the
expedition as Berger returns to uncover the unexpected revelations hidden
among the "Mystery Skulls of Palau."

As the journey unfolds, the researchers excavate the delicate fossils, and the
appearance of the cave's inhabitants starts to take shape. One skull has a
pronounced brow ridge that looks somewhat like that of a Neanderthal, with a
wide nose, small eyes and a strange, flat face. But then the mystery deepens.
Within minutes of entering the cave, the research team makes another
discovery that raises the stakes even higher: the plentitude of bones
suggests that the cave could have been the mass grave of an entire community.
The scientists begin their investigation by creating a laser grid of the cave
to design a 3-D CGI map so they can easily return to the "virtual" cave once
the expedition has ended. A geologist collects samples from different layers
of the cave floor for carbon dating.

Back at a lab at Palau's National Museum, Berger and his team realize that
what looked like a pronounced brow ridge is only a deposit of calcrete -- a
mineral deposit left by rainwater over hundreds of years. When researchers
scrape away the calcrete, the skull looks more modern, forcing the scientists
to re-evaluate their estimate of the fossils' age. This yields an even more
astonishing revelation: These bones could belong to an unknown tribe of tiny
humans living in an evolutionary time warp just 3,000 years ago.

But Berger wants to know why the members of this tribe had such large teeth.
One theory suggests that these people were Homo sapiens whose bodies and brain
cavities shrank from one generation to the next to cope with a lack of
nutrition, while their teeth, which typically evolve more slowly than other
parts of the body, did not. This would mean that rather than evolving over
tens of thousands of years, these "little people" evolved in size just a few
hundred years after arriving in Palau.

At a carbon dating lab in Florida, samples taken from the cave confirm that
the lost tribe existed in Palau between 3,000 and 1,500 years ago, perhaps
supporting the idea that these people adapted to their surroundings in just a
few hundred years. Evolutionary scientists have disputed the plausibility of
this rapid rate of change in humans. The revolutionary findings in Palau
could transform the way we think about human adaptability over just hundreds
of years, instead of thousands.

On the final day of the expedition, Berger journeys to the other side of Palau
to visit a second cave, and finds another spectacular, untapped treasure trove
of hundreds of fossilized bones. The sheer number and age range of the bones,
like those found in the first cave, could make them one of the greatest
concentrations of fossilized human remains on the planet. One day the fossils
may reveal how the tiny people of Palau lived, but until then, where these
people came from, how they met their demise and their significance in our
understanding of human evolution remains a mystery.

Other experts featured in the "Mystery Skulls of Palau" include Prithijit
Chatrath, paleontologist, Duke University; Steve Churchill, paleontologist,
Duke University; Dean Falk, anthropologist, Florida State University; Susan
Larson, anatomist, Stony Brook State University of New York; William Jungers,
anthropologist, Stony Brook University School of Medicine; and Rhonda Quinn,
geologist, Rutgers University.

"Mystery Skulls of Palau" is produced by Parthenon Entertainment Limited for
National Geographic Channel. Producer, director and editor for Parthenon is
Ian Marsh, writer is Adam Meyer. For National Geographic Channel executive
producer is Howard Swartz, senior vice president of production is Juliet Blake
and executive vice president of content is Steve Burns.

Based at the National Geographic Society headquarters in Washington, D.C., the
National Geographic Channel (NGC) is a joint venture between National
Geographic Ventures (NGV) and Fox Cable Networks (FCN). Since launching in
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the history of cable and more recently the fastest ratings growth in
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the launch of NGC HD, which provides the spectacular imagery that National
Geographic is known for in stunning high-definition. NGC has carriage with all
of the nation's major cable and satellite television providers, making it
currently available to nearly 66 million homes. For more information, please
visit http://www.nationalgeographic.com/channel.

SOURCE National Geographic Channel

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